A House Next Door to Trauma: Learning from Holocaust Survivors How to Respond to Atrocity

Drawing on her long-standing experience as a manager of services for refugees and survivors, Judith Hassan presents a practical guide to working with people who have lived through war trauma. She explores the particular challenges caring professionals face in supporting this group, and develops a working model that takes into account the therapist's own response to the trauma and how this impacts on the therapeutic relationship.

Specific issues covered include issues of loss, grief and mourning in relation to trauma, the role of the social, political and cultural context of the trauma, and the effect of a person's age (at the time of the trauma and the present time). The author also discusses the transmission of trauma to the next generation, mutual support groups as a therapeutic medium, and listening to survivors' stories.

Using her work with survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and with refugees from Bosnia, and drawing on the experiences of Rwanda and Kosovo, she provides a lucid and ultimately hopeful guide to the positive potential of therapeutic work in this area.